Chelsea Clinton tours SF General in support of early...

1of 24Chelsea Clinton greets Dominica Thomas and her 4-day-old son, Lance, on a tour of S.F. General Hospital.Photo: Photos by Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

2of 24Chelsea Clinton chats with Dr. Shonul Jain during a tour of San Francisco General Hospital, where a Clinton Foundation-backed program for new parents will begin next week.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

3of 24Chelsea Clinton (right) greets nurse manager Deirdre McAllister during a tour of the birth center and children’s health clinic at San Francisco General Hospital.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

4of 24Chelsea Clinton looks at posters promoting a Clinton Foundation program in a hospital room at San Francisco General.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

6of 24Chelsea Clinton (center) greets pediatric nurses before taking a group picture during a tour of the birth center and children’s health clinic at San Francisco General Hospital.Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

7of 24Click through the gallery to see the celebrities that have been spotted around the Bay Area recently.Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty

9of 24Multiple celebrities showed up for the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco on the week of Sept. 10, including actor Harrison Ford.Photo: Courtesy Global Climate Action Summit

10of 24Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore also spoke at the summit, held in Downtown San Francisco.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

11of 24Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff (center) mingles with former Secretary of State John Kerry (right) Julie Packard (second from right) and Jane Goodall (left) at the Healthy Oceans Climate Reception at Salesforce East on Mission Street in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

13of 24On Sept. 8, fans spotted Kanye West at the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo. One woman claimed she saw him purchasing a pair of flip-flops. Full story here.Photo: Twitter Screen Grab

14of 24Prior to the mall visit, West made a surprise appearance onstage with Teyana Taylor at her Sept. 5 concert at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco.Photo: Twitter Screen Grab

15of 24Then, later in the week, West attended the wedding of Sujay Jaswa and Eleni Greenwood at San Francisco City Hall.Photo: Twitter Screen Grab

16of 24Lars Ulrich of Metallica and his wife, model Jessica Miller, also attended the wedding of Sujay Jaswa and Eleni Greenwood at San Francisco City Hall.Photo: Twitter Screen Grab

17of 24Actor Chris Pratt and rumored girlfriend Katherine Schwarzenegger (the daughter of Arnold Schqarzenegger and Maria Shriver) were spotted around the North Bay throughout the second weekend of September. The pair wine tasted with Pratt's brother and friends at Round Pond Estate in Napa before attending to the Meritage Resort for the Benefiting the Leaven Mayors Gala. Read the full story here.Photo: Social media screen grab

18of 24Keanu Reeves briefly stole the show before a late-August wedding when the bride and groom spotted him at the bar of the Dream Inn in Santa Cruz. Reeves took an enthusiastic photo with the soon-to-be-married couple. Story here.Photo: Social media screen grab

19of 24Ashton Kutcher spoke during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center on September 5, 2018 in San Francisco. Kutcher, known for roles on "That Seventies Show" and "Two-and-a-Half Men," is also a prominent tech investor. Photo: Joe Scarnici, Getty Images for Sound

20of 24Keep your eyes peeled for the stars of "13 Reasons Why," including Katherine Langford (above). Shooting takes place around the Vallejo, Sebastopol and San Rafael areas and runs from August 12 to February 6, 2019. Full story here.Photo: Beth Dubber, Associated Press

21of 24Musician Tom Waits visited the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium at the end of August to catch rocker Jack White. An Instagram from the band said, "Tom Waits came to Jack White's performance in San Francisco and made all the musicians in the band confirm and pay testament to their love of the religion of music. He also stole Jack's watch." Full story here.Photo: Social media screen grab

23of 24In July, Kiernan Shipka, who played Sally Draper on "Mad Men," dined at Zuni Cafe with her mom.Photo: Social media screen grab

24of 24Shipka also had one of the infamous morning buns from Tartine Bakery on 18th Street.Photo: Social media screen grab

It’s never too early to start teaching small children by simply talking and reading to them, experts in early development say, but a new program at San Francisco General Hospital is taking that concept all the way to birth.

Starting next week, parents will get instructions on how to be their baby’s “first teacher” before they’ve left the hospital, when the infant is just a few days old. The concept is simple: Parents are encouraged to talk, sing and read to their babies, even if the kids can’t yet talk back or understand.

Studies have shown repeatedly that the first few years of childhood are perhaps the most important in overall brain development, and parents and other close caregivers are better suited than anyone to bolster that growth.

The program for new parents is an offshoot of a similar campaign involving young children called Talking Is Teaching: Talk, Read, Sing, which was put in place in San Francisco General’s pediatric clinic in 2016.

“The message is, ‘You are your baby’s first teacher, and we want to support you in raising your family,’” said Dr. Neeti Doshi, who leads the pediatric campaign. “We tell them that reading, talking and singing are important for your baby’s development.”

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With the brand new parents, they want to plant that seed as early as possible: “We’ll let it marinate and develop,” Doshi said.

The San Francisco General programs are both part of a Clinton Foundation national initiative called Too Small to Fail, which is aimed at preparing kids for kindergarten and reducing classroom readiness disparities.

Studies show that up to 60 percent of children in the United States are behind in language and reading skills when they enter kindergarten, according to the foundation. Interacting with kids, even from a very young age, can improve those skills, say experts in early childhood development.

Parents can do this by reading to their children, of course. But they can also just talk to them — and it’s even better if that chatter is educational in some small way.

“Educational” doesn’t have to be much more than just counting an infant’s toes while changing her diaper or talking about the shape and color of tomatoes and carrots while grocery shopping with a toddler. The Talking Is Teaching campaigns are meant to tell parents that they can teach their kids through the simplest communications.

“The goal is educating parents on the importance of language, and telling them that they have the tools to teach,” said Patti Miller, director of the Too Small to Fail national initiative. “We wanted to make the campaign as easy for parents to engage with as possible. So we started thinking a lot about meeting parents where they are, in the everyday places and spaces they go with their kids.”

Clinton talks with patient Mari Hendrickson, 3, at the hospital, where a Clinton Foundation education program will begin next week.

Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

The pediatrician’s office was a natural place to start, Miller said. The first location for the campaign, in 2014, was also in the Bay Area: UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Though the official program there has since ended, it had a lasting impact — doctors and nurses continue to instruct parents to “talk, sing and read,” said Dr. Dayna Long, medical director for the hospital’s Department for Community Health and Engagement

As part of the campaigns in both Oakland and San Francisco, doctors or other caregivers take a minute or two to talk with parents about how they can interact with their kids. Posters in exam rooms and waiting areas give tips for what to talk about: the bus, the sun, feeling happy or sad. Families also are given a children’s book.

Early evaluations of the programs in Oakland and San Francisco found that the lessons were sticking with parents, most of whom said in follow-up surveys that they continued to apply the tips they picked up long after their doctor’s visit. Doctors involved with the campaigns said they hope to see longer-term studies looking at whether they actually improve kindergarten readiness.

On Thursday, leaders of the San Francisco campaign toured the pediatric clinic and the hospital’s birthing center with officials from the Clinton Foundation, including vice chairwoman Chelsea Clinton. Too Small to Fail was among the first programs developed by the Clinton Foundation, in part because early childhood development was a particular passion of Hillary Clinton, her daughter said.

Chelsea Clinton greets pediatric nurses and staff at San Francisco General Hospital.

Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Now that she has children of her own, Chelsea Clinton said, she’s put some of the tips she picked up from the campaign into practice at home. She reads, sings and talks with her kids all the time, to the point that she’s had some complaints.

One afternoon while making dinner, Clinton was talking her daughter through the process — now we’re chopping vegetables, now we’re boiling water — when the girl, about 2 years old, interrupted.

Erin Allday is a health reporter who writes about infectious diseases, stem cells, neuroscience and consumer health topics like fitness and nutrition. She’s been on the health beat since 2006 (minus a nine-month stint covering Mayor Gavin Newsom). Before joining The Chronicle, Erin worked at newspapers all over the Bay Area and covered a little of everything, including business and technology, city government, and education. She was part of a reporting team that won a Polk Award for regional reporting in 2005, for a series of stories on outsourcing jobs from Santa Rosa to Penang, Malaysia. Erin started her journalism career at the Daily Californian student newspaper and many years later still calls Berkeley her home.